I've never made a single boating mistake in 10 + years of boating. Not one. Not even an itsy bitsy one. No sir, not a single mistake - more like multiples.
I'd say my biggest mistake was when I owned my first boat. It was summer and I decided to leave it in the water at my dock on the lake. At the time there was no floating section so she was tied to the stationary part w/ bow facing the bank and stern facing the water.
Ok so here are the 3 ingredients to the perfect storm I created with help from the Lord:
1) the boat had a known leak that I would bilge out every day. Slow but a leak nonetheless.
2) Did I mention the stern was facing the channel?
3) Big rain storm forecasted for the weekend (the Lord's part)
So its Thursday night and I'm about to go down and bilge out the day's water when my buddy shows up. We shoot the chit and have a couple beers - life is good. When he leaves I forget all about getting the water outta the boat. After mid-night the rain came in hard and into the next morning. I went to work Friday and never thought about the boat. Got home that evening and cracked a beer and sat down on the deck facing the dock. I make note of a funny looking spot on the water. The waves are moving but this spot is not moving. Then it hits me. That is where the boat was parked and it is GONE! I run down and see that the boat is on the bottom in 10 - 15 ft of water! The dock lines broke and she sat right down on the bottom perfectly. Luckily the motor was tilted up. The spot I saw on top was an oil slick created by the 50:1 premix that was leaking out of my 6 gallon tank. The story gets longer from here so lets just say we got the boat out and used it for 2 more years....never even changed the plugs but did pressure wash the inside
Although the electric start did **** the bed in a month or so I continued using the boat by wrapping a rope around the flywheel. She ran better than ever! Sold her running for $750. Best motor I'll ever own hand's down.